Verizon - No DSL Over Hybrid Copper/Fiber Lines? 254
bziman asks: "Speaking of fiber, I've been waiting for DSL from Verizon here in Northern Virginia for more than a year now. Their excuse is that even though I'm well within the normal range limitations (I'm only 9,000 ft from the Central Office), I'm not eligble for DSL because half of the line between the CO and my house is fiber optic instead of copper, and they haven't figured out how to run DSL over fiber optic yet. I can
get no meaningful answers from Verizon, so I turn to the combined wit and wisdom of Slashdot." Note that it's the hybrid nature of the lines that's the problem, as Verizon already provides DSL for it's all-copper customers. I would think, that customers with all-fiber connections could just be wired directly into the Internet...or is this assumption a fallacy?
You have to get ADSL ... (Score:1)
However, Verizon is one of the worst when it comes to their own DSL -- they're really clueless.
Unfortunately, all of the independent DSL providers like Covad seem to be going out of business, so I may be looking for another provider soon. I can't see going with Verizon, though.
What you should really do is to check out www.dslreports.com -- Verizon is rated one of the worst out there.
Re:I think you're screwed (Score:1)
Relief is coming (Score:1)
Here's the catch: politics. This would need to be placed in these remote terminals, which are basically small green boxes in the local community. This means that if Verizon wants to put a DSLAM out there, they have to let Covad put one out there also, and Northpoint (if Verizon didn't already kill them) and any other CLECs. Verizon doesn't even have room for all of these parties in the central office most of the time.
But there is a solution. Verizon is working on a obtaining a multiprotocol remote DSLAM. This would allow them to put one DSLAM in the neighborhood and lease cards to different CLECs. This multiprotocol DSLAM would support DMT, CAP, DMT2, and probably 2B1Q (for SDSL). This would allow Verizon to customize the card for the CLECs network and hardware.
The big upside? You will be able to get stupid speeds if you want them. Someday even VDSL (52 Mb).
YMMV
Re:I think you're screwed (Score:2)
Re:Verizon DSL requires software (Score:1)
Re:Verizon DSL requires software (Score:1)
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DSL only works on copper (Score:2)
That may be true, but A) it wouldn't be DSL, and B) it wouldn't run on your telephone line.
DSL, by nature of the technology, ONLY runs on a copper pair. Not fiber. If you have a clean copper pair from your house to the phone company's central office (CO), and you're within the distance requirement (generally around 15,000 feet), you should be able to get DSL. The DSL signal will be split off, and connected to a DSLAM, while the analog signal goes to the regular phone system.
If you only have a copper pair from your house to a junction box somewhere, and then fiber from that point to the CO, the only way to make DSL work on your line is to A) run a new copper pair all the way from the CO to your house (which would probably put you out of range), or B) install a piece of equipment in that junction box such as a miniram or remote DSLAM, split the DSL signal off there, and then use fiber to connect the miniram or remote DSLAM to equipment in the CO. Both of these cost money, and the phone company doesn't like spending money they don't have to spend. If you can get them to do B, though, your connection should be awesome, because your DSL loop length will only be a couple thousand feet to the junction box.
The whole point of DSL is to provide a cheap connection on existing wiring. The existing wiring was not designed for it. If you think about it, it's pretty amazing that it works at all. If you don't qualify, don't bitch at the phone companies too much, and please, PLEASE don't bitch at the ISPs (who have no control over your phone lines).
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Re:It's called a MiniRAM, bellsouth uses them.... (Score:2)
--
Fiber for voice is very low-bandwidth (Score:2)
Re:Fiber for voice is very low-bandwidth (Score:2)
Re:Tthink you're screwed?? I Think DSL is Screwed! (Score:2)
After dealing with Ameritech for several months just to get one DSL line installed I can honestly say anything is better than that. The local cable company is doing lightning-quick installs. I called to order service on a Friday afternoon and had my parents up and running on a cable modem on Tuesday morning. With DSL I can expect at least a month or two wait on a service install just for the local loop.
Ah well, I guess I'm just bitter. I had Northpoint at 17,700 feet from my CO and it ran just peachy at 384Kbps. I was happy as a clam and it was rock solid. Then that dark day came and the connection went dead and all the troubles started. Can't get Covad.. max distance for line sharing is 15000 feet. Can't get Ameritech DSL, max distance is 12000 feet. The only CLEC that might've reused the old Northpoint pair that worked fine went under a couple weeks after Northpoint. Yes, I've been soured on DSL. To have it snatched from your grasp and then receive the runaround that "you're too far away" is quite disheartening. When I move I will make sure to move within 10,000 feet of a CO and promptly order cable modem service instead. ;-)
Re:I think you're screwed (Score:2)
me, too! ;-(
Part of the solution, I'm afraid is to get some other source of broadband (problematic, I know), get a cell-phone, cancel your Plain Old Telephone Service, and then make sure the entire Verizon management knows why you cancelled your service with them. And publicise that fact as widely as you can (send copies to the state public utility commission, publicize on usenet in your area, send letters to the editor, etc.)
They won'tl listen to you until you hit them in the pocketbook.
RSLAM (Remote DSLAM) (Score:2)
Talking of lazy, go and do a Google search, there's tonnes of information there on this subject looking to be discovered.
DSL From the Phone Company (Score:1)
Ignoring the Fiber/Copper thing, DSL has always had problems with remotes. Remotes are devices that are not co-located with the CO switch, but sit closer to customers -- they're often in large green-ish boxes, typically one per neighborhood or so. (Remotes can actually get quite large...) Anyway, a Remote takes a large number of phone lines and relies on the fact that not all of them are going to be on the phone, to concentrate down to a smaller number of lines that go to the Central Office (CO). Typically, these conversations are sampled and sent digitally to the CO.
So, stepping back, DSL works by having your twisted pair connected up to a DSLAM (AM = Access Module, I believe), which strips out those higher frequencies and forwards your audio onto the CO switch.
Any remote will have an issue with DSL, because the DSLAM is typically located at the CO. Digital remotes don't even transfer the higher-frequency signals to the CO, and analog remotes (much less common) are set up so your twisted pair isn't always connected to the CO.
Now, phone companies will occasionally run a few twisted pairs straight from the CO to the site of the remote, often for future expansion. (A T1 trunk is physically just 2 twisted pairs.) It's possible for the CO to use those pairs to handle individual lines instead of configuring them as trunks.
More modern remotes use fiber to talk to the CO -- fiber carries many more conversations and doesn't have to be regenerated as often. So, if there's only fiber going to the CO, then it isn't possible to use DSLAMs at the CO.
Now, recently, it's become possible to install DSLAMs at the remote, extending the range of DSL. Not too common yet, but will be the way that many phone companies do it.
For fiber-to-the-curb scenarios (this is what I have), my local phone company (Sprint) is offering me what they call DSL, but which is actually ethernet straight from the ONU. (Optical Network Unit -- it's a smaller box that sits on our curb and translates from fiber to copper. We only have copper for the last 500 ft or so.) The ONU has a a router card in it that forwards my IP traffic into the rest of their network via fiber.
So, in short...
1. It is possible to get DSL if you're on a remote. Either use a pair straight to the CO, or use a DSLAM at the Remote.
2. With fiber, it's harder, but IP can be carried over fiber if the phone company wants to make the investment.
I live in your area, advice (Score:3)
Re:DSL is currently a copper thing. (Score:3)
This complicates competition. DSL CLECs can rent space from the incumbent in the CO to put in their own DLSAMs, but space in the street furniture is too tight to house several competitors' equipment. One answer is to open the data networks in the ATM network that carries the data back to the ISPs' routers, but that was not in the Telecom Act of 1996, which was written before the commercialization of the Internet.
VDSL will have to be deployed this way, since it can only reach 4000 feet. So either DSL competition goes away at that point, or we need a new Telecom Act. [fcc.gov]
Re:No DSL in the curb cabinet (Score:2)
Really? You might want to check with Alcatel [alcatel.com] or Lucent [lucent.com] or AFC [afc.com] or NEC [biglobe.ne.jp] or Nortel [nortelnetworks.com] about that.
(Maybe they don't go into curb boxes, but they do go into the neighborhood DLC remote terminal....)
Re:No DSL in the curb cabinet (Score:2)
The telcos are aware that the technology in question exists; they just might not want to spend the money installing it.
Yes, but would you be happy to have {Verizon,Belgacom,...} have access, as they deem necessary, to your basement?
Re:A real answer. (Score:3)
Correct.
It tends to be called names like "remote subscriber terminal" (and possibly other things with "remote" and "subscriber" in them). Here's a tutorial on Digital Loop Carrier systems [iec.org], that being the name of the technology. In effect, a digital loop (T1, or more, possibly fibre) is run to the "sub-station" (remote terminal), and subscriber phone lines are run to the "sub-station" as well. The "sub-station" performs some of the functions that would be performed at the central office for subscribers whose phone line goes directly to the CO, e.g. analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog conversion.
This multiplexes N phone circuits over the digital loop, so you only have to run that one loop to the neighborhood, not one loop per subscriber. (This is called "pair gain" because you can serve more subscribers with one or two pairs to the neighborhood.)
Unfortunately, this means that everything above about 4 KhZ or so on the subscriber's phone line gets lost - the remote terminal filters it out and spits out the standard 8000-samples-per-second digitized signal. As ADSL uses stuff well above 4 KhZ, you can't do ADSL with this.
However, one might then ask "well, as the stuff going back to the central office is digital anyway, why not convert the ADSL signal to a bit stream at the remote terminal and send that back to the central office?"
That's what SBC's Project Pronto, and probably some other projects of other phone companies, is all about; here's a discussion of "Digital Loop Carrier meets ADSL" [iec.org]. The link to the neighborhood is fibre, not copper, and it runs, among other things, ATM back to the central office; ADSL carries ATM cells, and those cells get shipped back to the CO, and, ultimately, to your ISP.
If the original poster can't get ADSL "because they have fibre running to their neighborhood", it's probably because Verizon don't have one of those shiny new ADSL-capable remote terminals in their neighborhood.
Re:Question/Assumption (Score:1)
My understanding of how this works... (Score:1)
When optical lines were installed (developed and initially roled out before high-speed modems were commonly available--faster than 28.8), the design restricted the frequency range it carried to that of the audible spectrum which humans can hear (since why whould you want to send data for stuff people couldn't hear?). Actually it's a bit tighter than that, and initially some people could spot who had fiber-optics to their home by the sound of the connection. This is also why some areas had/have real problems with 56k modems at full speed, and exactly why you can't run a DSL modem at all over one of these lines. And why the phone companies put a dead stop to "over-the-counter" modems faster than 56k.
In order for a telco to get DSL out to fiber-optic customers, the telco must upgrade their systems to carry full-spectrum on their fiber-optics. This is no simple issue. The initial benifit for fiber was that you could potentially replace a copper bundle with a single thread of fiber. And when it would be less prone to physical damage and decay, and it would be way easier to troublshoot, and cheaper to install.
The fact is, when you're phonecall hits that fiber line, over 60% of the sound data gets thrown in the trash (that was the number given to me, I don't know how accurate it is)... in a lot of ways, it's like taking analog music and recording it down to an MP3... sure it "sounds" the same, but technically, most of the sound is gone.
Now imagine if that was data you sent instead of voice... This is why you will not get DSL installed if there is even one inch of fiber-optic between you and the telco (unless the telco has upgraded all of their switches to handle full-spectrum on their fiber).
...oh yeah, and I didn't even get into the equipment that sits between a piece of copper and a piece of fiber, which digitizes the audio for streaming over fiber. Just how fast of a computer do you need to handle ripping a CD to even a 64kbps MP3 a 1X speed? Now, how many phone lines simultainiously on a optical feed to a standard hub? You do the math, and then think about how realistic you think it is that a telco is just going to drop a super-computer into that manhole just so that you can have DSL service?
Nobody makes a box to service you (Score:1)
You mean PPPoE ??? (Score:1)
A year ago, free PPPoE where quite bleeding edge. I was pretty much stuck with the crappy Windoze client my ISP provide. Now, a PPPoE client is integrated standard in OpenBSD and Debian (my choices of free OS). If it is not in your, check out Roaring Penguin (www.roaringpenguin.com/pppoe). I used it with RedHat 6.2 for Sparc and must say it's a fantastic and easy to use piece of software.
As of the clueless telco tech not being able to make it work with NT Server 4.0, point him to RASPPPoE at http://www.accis.de/specials/raspppoe/raspppoe.ht
Re:How DSL works (Score:2)
I am not a telco guy, but why doesn't it work? Crappy field equipment?
Re:Verizon DSL requires software (Score:2)
Trust me, you'll be much happier with a router than the "WinPoET".
BTW, I get 400-500kbps down and 40kbps up with the $40/month self-install-on-your-own-phone-line Verizon DSL. It did take four months for me to get it, evidently Verizon was slow in deploying DSLAMs. I could have gotten $100/month Covad service faster if I really wanted it.
It's doable, but. . . (Score:1)
I've had two personal experiences with Cable companies hooking up cable modems for me, once in Northern New Jersey area, and once in Phoenix, AZ. The quality of service in Phoenix seems to be 100x better than what I've seen in NJ - getting my folks cable modem setup in NJ has been an absolute nightmare.
It's all about the people behind the local service.
Re:DSL is currently a copper thing. (Score:1)
From what I hear, Canada has the US whipped in many places w/ DSL connectivity. At least here, the excuses you hear are that the telcos only want to put DSLAMs in the COs. :-(
I guess it depends on who your telco is too -- some may be that much cooler than others. The way the US system (doesn't) work, I'm not really surprised...
--Joe--
Re:G.lite (Score:1)
This is the so-called splitter.
Untrue. Line characteristics are also affected by weather, temperature, and potentially by changes in service to other people in your area.
Untrue, at least to the extent that this processing burden is unique to G.lite. "Regular" ADSL also has a DSP that performs the same function. (Hey, I work for a DSP company [ti.com] that sells a ADSL chipset [ti.com] that's used in both....) Now, it's come to my attention that the term "G.lite" is no longer widely used. It's officially known as ITU G.992.2, and most places don't bother to tell you what particular flavor ADSL you're running -- they'll just tell you a bandwidth number. Wheee.... The main point is that it's splitterless at the consumer's end of the line.
The main reason I say G.lite has lower computational requirements (at least, in steady state), is that the data rate is lower. Since at least some portion of the processing cost is proportional to the data rate, this makes sense. Much of the front end work that processes the analog data of the wire stays pretty much the same, though, as I understand it. Those pieces work at symbol rate, which I believe is fixed. The way bandwidth is varied is by varying the number of bits per symbol.
Now as for changing line characteristics: The line characteristics of a full-rate ADSL line and of a G.lite line both drift over time. A DSL modem needs to track these changes and incrementally update its mathematical model of the line. If too large of a change occurs, the DSL modem needs to re-train (just like a voiceband modem does) to get back on track. This is true for both ADSL and G.lite. A G.lite modem is simply much more likely to need to retrain due to wild changes in loading. Because retraining is an "exceptional" event though, and because the whole modem focuses on retraining rather than transmitting data during the training process, this cost is not added on top of your normal communication processing requirements.
In practice, I understand G.lite and full rate DSL are very similar in processing burden, and that the main difference is in how they're tuned. Full rate DSL is tuned for high speed transmission, at the expense of making retraining more expensive (since it doesn't expect to retrain often, as you mention). G.lite runs somewhat slower, but offers fast retrain to handle interruptions on the line, and also to offer lower-power modes that basically "hang up" the modem. The drawback is that you don't get as much bandwidth to play with.
--Joe--
DSL is currently a copper thing. (Score:5)
My understanding is that DSL is a signalling protocol for copper lines, so they're correct that a hybrid fiber/copper feed won't work unless the copper-to-fiber bridge contains the DSLAM (Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexer) front end to convert the analog DSL signals into digital bits to go over the fiber.
Right now, DSLAMs like to live on racks in a CO, not one of those grey boxes by the side of the road where the copper-to-fiber conversion is likely happening. To run DSL, you need copper from you to the DSLAM. Hence the problem.
Presumably, whatever they use to bridge the copper over to fiber could be adapted for tranceiving high-bandwidth DSL signals as well, but it sounds like right now that's not in the cards.
That's my 0x02 cents...
--Joe--
G.lite (Score:5)
My understanding is that G.lite is a less computationally intensive version of DSL, and so it can be implemented on lower cost equipment. It also makes some compromises so that you can have a "splitterless" setup (you don't have a voiceband/DSL-band filter where the phoneline enters the house). The result is a lower-bandwidth DSL which is suitable for consumer applications.
G.lite still uses the same frequency bands as normal DSL, though, from what I recall. It may be slightly narrower, but it's still well outside the 300 Hz to 3300 Hz range that voiceband uses, because it's supposed to coexist with the household voiceband service on the same line. It's also supposed to coexist with voiceband modems and FAX machines. (Some of the performance tradeoffs in G.lite apparently have to do with the harmonics coming off of the things it might have to coexist with, including changes in loading due to people picking up handsets, incoming ring signals, and so on... In a non-G.lite setting, the splitter handles most of this. G.lite is supposed to make this easier on J. Random Consumer, again at the cost of some performance.)
Given all that, I'd be surprised if G.lite was any friendlier to fiber than regular DSL.
--Joe--
Re:You're out of luck, here's why. (Score:2)
They already deliver video to some apartments. They've run fiber to all new homes. And they're biding their time... watching while the "competition" falls apart.
It's fairly amusing, actually. For a while, it looked like the telco was going to get caught with its pants down: the cableco's were getting into broadband and wireless, and the telco seemed to be doing nothing.
Then all of a sudden everyone and his dog can get DSL for dirt cheap, the cell phone competitors are going bankrupt, the long-distance alternative providers are going bankrupt, and the telco is supplying video to a few people. Goodness, what an about-face!
Anyway, all that to say that there's at least one telco that does a heckuva lot more than voice.
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Old News (Score:1)
YMMV, but... (Score:4)
We got DSL very soon thereafter. Somehow the technical issues vanished, although they claimed a top speed of 780-something because of them.
Now, I titled this post YMMV, and I mean it. I don't want people to reply "But that's not possible!!!!!" over and over. It may very well not be possible; my suspicion is they (Verison) were lying when they said it wasn't possible (meaning, the lines in our area were just fine, etc). It wouldn't be the first time I'd caught them in a lie. What my point IS, is don't just wait. Make a stand, or just get a cable modem and tell them to fuck off.
Re:How DSL works (Score:2)
It does work, with the right equipment.
I know people who make regular use of fiber optic lines to relay analog S-band signals (2.3 GHz) from one building to another. This lets them test S-band transponders without hauling all of their test equipment to the building the transponder is located in.
But Qwest is installing them? (Score:3)
One of the rich guys where I work lives on a cul-de-sac, way out of reach of DSL but both he and his neighbors can get it thanks to the whining of politically connected neighbors. He says that one day US West showed up and dropped what looked like 1/3 of a shipping container with an A/C where the dinky phone box had been. I think this represents basically the type of "upgrade" Qwest is talking about, a micro-CO, that can support interesting data bits on the inside.
There's probably a market for DSLAM vendors to come up with DSLAMs that need little more than power and good venting and can withstand wide environmental conditions, like heat and humidity, so that the Qwests of the world don't have to build buildings with A/C everywhere. Since the upgrade to "digital cable" in my neighborhood, I see a fair number of what look like school lockers bolted onto the phone poles. I think they must be breakout points for the cable system, they have power running into them and what looks like CATV coax running out. If they can do it, DSL can too..
Re:I think you're screwed (Score:2)
Re:I think you're screwed (Score:2)
BTW, my mother has an SBC DSL modem, and I regularly can get 6 megabits worth of concurrent traffic, so they must be using something much bigger then a T1.
Re:I think you're screwed (Score:2)
You get what you pay for.
Re:I think you're screwed (Score:2)
Maybe someone should make a web site about the situation so we can all keep up-to-date.
--
About DSL... (Score:3)
After reading your question, I went out on the net and found this [telebyteusa.com] interesting document. It really runs down on what DSL technology is about (history, terms, and lots of good info)...
For the paranoid, the url is: http://www.telebyteusa.com/dslprimer/dslfull.htm
:)
---
Computer Science: solving today's problems tomorrow.
A real answer. (Score:4)
The real answer is this:
Most likely what is going on, is your being serviced by a "sub-station". Thats not the real name, but I don't know the real one.
Basicly what they do, is put a mini-switch out in the feild in a envormentaly controled valt, either below ground, or above. So you are most likely being serviced by a "sub-station" (not the real name). Its not a fiber/hybrid.
What SBC is doing (Southwestern Bell, Pacbell, Ameritech, etc) is putting NEW "sub-stations" out in the field where people are to far from the CO, or where they are already serviced by a"sub-station" . These are equipment cabinets, in the field that take the copper, and put it into a DSLAM to provide DSL services, and into a switch interface, to provide phone service, and then backhaul it all with fiber.
SBC is spending something like 5 Billion on this project, and so far nothing has come of it, other then I have seen alot of these above ground cabinets pop up.
Anyway, I was quite annoyed that no one gave a straight answer (that was moderated up, I didn't read EVERY message) although I'm probably to late to get moderated up.
-Tripp
business v. residential (Score:2)
But of course, I can pony up the extra money and get BUSINESS DSL service, no problem. What gives? Is this just a way to screw the little guy and make even MORE money?
Re:You can run Hybrid mode with IDSL and g.HSDSL (Score:2)
1) People do not buy cisco brand hardware just for the hardware. I buy cisco hardware because if there's a bug with it, i can call cisco and they'll build a new copy of the IOS for me. I buy cisco because if it malfunctions, they'll overnight me a replaecment. I buy cisco so i can use their website (which by the way is friggen useful, compared to say, MSKnowledgeBase). Try compare that with your $75 dvd drive from compusa.
2) The chip on your videocard is much different from the chip on your local cisco (well since cisco has shifted from that 68000 chip to a decent asic). With a much smaller market for say, 7200 series routers versus the market for video cards, a cisco mainboard/processor costing significantly more than your video card isn't an insane idea. Not only fab costs, but the R&D costs aren't spread across 10million units like they can be for video cards, or even x86 cpus.
3) You know how much a local point to point T1 costs? roughly $100-$200/mo dependent on cost. Not thousands of dollars like you think it is.
And I will contend that a dsl line is more like a ladc line than a point-to-point t1, so the cost is about half that. Hell telcos are happy they can make $30/line or whatever for a bundled loop, because that's $30 extra bucks, without using another pair. You can't do that with a ptpT1 or ladc.
4) I don't see how you can call it overcharging when 90% of these companies don't make profits. You need to recoup R&D expenses, as well as the actual production expenses. In my world, chipset designs don't grow on trees. See the above argument on production volume on why your pc hardware is cheaper.
5) Repeaters blow. There's really no difference between putting a repeater in somewhere, and putting a miniDSLAM in a lobsterpot on a telephone pole, both suck to do, require additional provisioning and manpower.
Re:They're feeding you bullshit (Score:2)
IDSL is the answer (Score:2)
Other than these three solutions, the only other thing that you can hope for is that someone puts a DSLAM in that neighbourhood box where your copper terminates. There was some movement in this direction in the industry not too long ago, but that was before everything melted down. At this point, there's no telling how much longer Covad is going to exist. Either your ILEC will provide the service or you're out of luck. Let's all have 3 cheers for monopolies, eh?
What you can try (Score:2)
Try these things:
1. www.dslreports.com
this is a great website to tell you more than you ever wanted to know about dsl.
2. Check with various other providers in the area. Mine is capu.net. They have been awesome for me, great support with people who really know networking. Also, they allow me to run anything I like on my end as long as it isn't a business web site or other high traffic site.
3. Keep calling Verizon and asking about DSL. Make them tired of hearing from you. It is their fault we don't have more access to high speed connections to the home anyway since they are/were one of the baby bells that screwed up the competition in the market place.
Good luck!
Re:You're out of luck, here's why. (Not Quite) (Score:3)
What it comes downto is older equipment cant handle dsl but newer stuff may be able to. Odds are they just say no to avoid any potential hassles since it is easier that way right now.
Hotels? (Score:4)
Ironically, the odds of getting this are inversely proportional to how far the fiber runs. If fiber runs to your block (or building!), there's not enough potential customers to justify the expense. But if there's hundreds of potential customers, the phone company can be fairly confident that it can find customers to justify the investment.
directly (Score:2)
I do not know what "wired directly into the Internet" means and I don't think Cliff does either.
Paradyne's DSL Sourcebook (Third Edition)... (Score:2)
I know here in Texas, SWBell is rolling out "Project Pronto" - which is essentially moving the DSLAM farther out to the customers - but as I understand it, it's a different setup than just moving the DSLAM (as a previous poster pointed out, compacted enviromentally hardened DSLAM's would be a bit pricey).
DSL's a mid-life kicker for copper (Score:2)
Now a few years ago, the US telephone industry came up with a new scheme called "Serving Area Concept" (SAC), which would shorten the copper loop to 12,000 feet, using fiber to a neighborhood multiplexor (DLC). SAC sounded great. When ISDN was the best thing going, it could have meant ISDN everywhere, because DLCs do ISDN just fine. (Not that the former-NYNEX parts of VeriZontal ever do that without hard coaxing.) But then DSL came along and best became worst: The DLCs didn't do DSL.
Now there *are* DSLAMs designed to go outdoors, in manholes or huts. These "remote terminals" are temperature-hardened. US West/Qwest has installed a few (their sprawling lines are mostly beyond the 12-18,000 foot limit of ADSL, and largely on DLC). SBC's Project Pronto uses them; trouble is, they're trying to hold up Pronto as a weapon against competition. Put in Pronto and take out competitors (who are using the old copper wires). The FCC said no so they've slowed down Pronto. Also note that *recent* DLCs can be upgraded to do DSL, but many older ones can't.
VeriZontal (well, the BellTitanic side; not so sure about ex-GTE areas) simply does not do remote terminals. So if you're in a DLC-served neighborhood, or more than about 15,000 wire feet from the CO (and the wire can snake every which way...), you're not going to get it. Competitive providers sometimes do apartment buildings (a nice deal is going into Harbor Towers, Boston, for instance) but that requires a large enough complex to merit the considerable cost of getting the T1 or T3 uplinks there.
A few years ago, the Bells said they'd get fiber to the home Real Soon Now. See http://www.newnetworks.com/ for some info about how those promises were broken.
Re:You're out of luck, here's why. (Not Quite) (Score:2)
Cblood has it right in a previous comment, your local telco can do it, they're just not allowed to, because then they'd have to let everyone else do it. Write a letter to your state's commerce department, one to the FTC, and one to the FCC. Explain how much easier it would be if the CLEC's were allowed to resell service from the ILEC's DLCs in this situation.
Alarm Circuit (Score:3)
Pass the info your conspiring ISP, (all the needed circuit id#'s, etc.) and they, if they have been in the DSL game for more than a year or two, will be able to get a DSL provider to provide service over that circuit.
As COVAD has moved from dedicated loop installs to line-sharing, you may or may not be able to get ADSL over the circuit, just the pricer SDSL.
Were there is a will, there is a way. And for more trials and tribulations check out dslreports.com. A virtual treasure trove of info there, aswell as people in a similiar position with the ILECs.
Taxonomy of DSL lines (Score:2)
ECONOMIC
When Baby Bells knocks off the DSL competition to the point where they can comfortably raise the DSL rates (10-30%) as ISDN rollout in the 80s has shown us before, these Bell companies usually waits to recoup their current copperwire-based infrastructure to pay off before investing in new technologies (i.e. fiber-DSL). They are pretty hard pressed to respond to shareholders at this market time.
PHYSICAL
The urge to deploy fiber-based DSLAM is not as great as the copper-based DSLAM simply because there is a huge amount of already installed copper-wire. The economic of using current copper wire is still very strong. Hence effectively diminish (but not deny) the desirable explosive growth of fiber-based DSL. Not to mention an excess vacant slots in many installed copper-based DSLAM waiting to be translated into steady revenues.
GOVERNMENTAL
Baby Bell companies will not be tempted to deploy new public-based infrastructure (i.e. Fiber-based DSL) if they are forced to share them with Competitive Local Access Carrier (CLEC) such as Covad (and whatever other CLECs are still surviving today).
POLITICS
I'm just very glad that that liberal Republican senator switched parties. Now we can flush out Rep. Tauzin of Louisiana (whose pocket seems overflowing with Bell money) from the Telecommunication committee and return the playing field back to the CLECs. We need to reinvigorate the DSL competition some more by level the playing field a bit.
SUPPORT
As many of us DSL-users will testify, the support of DSL line will only but slowly be improving (at a snail-pace) as they shore up their order/problem tracking systems. At this moment, too many DSL users who are at the fringe distance (more than 12,000', excess bridge taps, and even crosstalk interference caused by too many DSL subscribers within the same trunk) will just have to tough it out while DSL providers work out the kinks one DSL line by one.
SUMMARY
Until the five things improve above, fiber-based DSL is a bleeding-edge toy technology which has been proven. Fiber-based DSL will not be effectively deployable at the rate we'd like to see.
Re:I think you're screwed (Score:3)
Fiber-in-the-loop means you don't have an end-to-end copper loop. DSL, with the exception of IDSL, requires a direct electrical connection to the CPE. There are a number of products that can be placed in concentrators (i.e. DSL line cards) that move the DSL termination to the nearest junction which then trunks everything back to a "DSLAM" (calling it an ATM cell mux would be more accurate.) The problem is, no one uses this technology. I've known about them since mid-'98.
Re:I think you're screwed (Score:3)
<sarcasm>But DSL is better because you don't have to share your bandwidth like you do with cable. DSL is always fast.</sarcasm>
That said, I can't even imagine what it would be like to have several thousand ADSL customers sharing a single T1. If the bandwidth is that oversold you'd be better off with a 28.8 modem.
________________________
You're out of luck, here's why. (Score:4)
The phone company expects to only deal with 8,000 samples of 8 bits each per second, and when they multiplex the signals for 24 lines into one (to get 23 more phone services through a single pair of wires), then sample everything at that rate. They don't care about DSL, they only expect to provide voice service, and engineer appropriately.
If you were willing to pay for the labor and materials and increased expense of having to run completely new lines... they would still probably turn you down, because they are only interested in delivering voice service, at the aformentioned 64kbits/second encoding.
--Mike--
Re:I think you're screwed (Score:2)
I wonder if GTE/Verizon is telling me wrong...? (Score:2)
I wonder if I really have a long distance problem or this hybrid/fiber problem. None of my friends in the same city (different locations) can get DSL either.
What do you think? I look forward to receiving replies soon.
Also, I forgot to note... (Score:2)
Re:You're out of luck, here's why. (Score:2)
Technology now exists to provision some form of DSL over most connection types, including Integrated-Fiber-In-The-Loop, FTTC (Fiber to the curb), FTTN (fiber to the neighborhood) et al.
In all these connection scenarios, there is one common element: There must be a powered cabinet in which resides the equipment that converts from the Analog voice signal to the 64Kbps G.711 stream. In many, but by no means all, cases, the fiber portion of the circuit is an STS-1 or STS-3 SONET loop back to the local CO or remote office.
Also, let me point out that a T1 is not provisoned on a single pair; a T1/DS1 uses a Transmit Pair and a Recieve Pair that must be located in seperate cable bundles to prevent cross-talk. HOWEVER, in certain areas of the country, where copper facilites are in short supply, Telcos are providing DS1/T1 connectivity by delivering the circuit as HDSL to the customer premise, at which point a special smart-jack converts the single pair HDSL signal to a two pair (four wire) DS1/T1. Telcos have been doing this for several years now.
As far as situations as yours go, most often it is simply the fact that the cost of providing the service is to high to justify the expense of rolling it out. In the markets I'm familiar with (market populations under 150K, in 22 states), there have been several cases where the cost of the bandwidth to backhaul from a particular market to the closest Internet POP was more than we could charge for the service in a given market.
Many of the DSL providers that have gone under, did so because they failed to use good business sense, and instead went with what I call the "Field of Dreams" model: Build it, and they will come... Definitely not a good approach to business.
On average, Telcos expect a two to three year payback on the investment. This investment can vary greatly, but you can expect the capital equipment costs alone to implement DSL in a given market to approach $1M. This means that the Telco must net, after subtracting the recurring cost of providing the service, approximately $30K monthly, or about $15-$20 of each subscriber's monthly bill, just to break even. Recurring operations charges to provide the service typically come in the range of $25-$35/month. Any lower, and there's something weird going on; any higher and there's usually no way to be competitive in the market.
For this reason, if the Telco can't keep the recurring cost down to a reasonable level that allows for a competitive rate for the service, then it is simply good business to NOT provide the service.
Anyway, that's my slightly more than 2 cents on the subject. Sorry for being so long winded, but it is really a complex business issue, more so than a technical issue.
Verizon DSL requires software (Score:2)
So I went with Cox Cable RoadRunner. The advantage is that it's a full-time raw bit pipe. The disadvantage is that it goes down at peak times -- no, not lowered bandwidth, I mean the cable modem reports no carrier.
Oh, how I long for the Bell Atlantic "FlexCap" DSL I had from 1997 to 2000. That's right, 1.5MB in 1997. It was their trial program. And it was a raw bit pipe. And it worked up to 20,000 feet. And it was solid -- never went down.
So the short of it is, if cable Internet is unavailable where you live, you may need to consider business DSL, which is around $300/month. Or get a T1 for $1100/month.
No go (Score:2)
Ait', first, let us talk about my qualifications to talk about this subject a bit.
I am cisco CCNP certified, have worked for GlobalCenter, GlobalCrossing, and have been working with networking for the last seven years or so.
The problem with fiber in the line is that when copper meets fiber, there is a medium conversion. The fiber only cares about vocal audio, which is the analog communication on the copper from about 20-20000 Hz -- the human voice (relatively). All else is killed off and this analog communication is translated into a digital pattern for transport on the fiber.
The result of this conversion is that the frequency range that is used by DSL for communication gets cut off. The multiplexor that does this conversion was only designed to transport audio -- not data, and was never designed for DSL.
You are fscked.
Concentration (Score:2)
Classically, telephony has solid copper pairs from the subscriber to the central office, resulting in a huge number of wires terminating in the CO. This architecture dates from the days when active components were too unreliable and too expensive to have outside the central office.
Over the years, various schemes have been developed to have little substations of one kind or another out in the field, to cut down the number of wires running back to the CO. There have been mini-switches and multiplexers. Mini-switches, or concentrators, are somewhat out of fashion, because they meant that all the lines couldn't be active at once. But multiplexers are widely used.
The most common type of multiplexer is one that multiplexes 16 analog lines into a T-1. This is completely incompatible with DSL, since the upstream bandwidth is 64Kb x 16 lines. (ISDN compatibility is supported by some such units.) These units are modest pole-mountable boxes.
Newer multiplexers use fibre for the upstream link. This is potentially usable with DSL, provided that the appropriate multiplexer is installed. But these are bigger, more elaborate boxes that need more power than can be delivered through the phone cable. They're usually too big for pole mount. Some need a more protected environment. Many have battery backup, and some have small emergency generators. The industry is still struggling with where to put these things.
In some areas, you might be able to cut a deal with the telco if you're willing to have a large metal box on your property.
Fiber? You can still get DSL for a nominal charge! (Score:2)
"Hello, Mr. Wherry?"
"Yes?"
"This is Ms. ___ with Bell Atlantic; I'm calling with the results of our engineering study."
"Terrific! What's it going to cost to get DSL?"
"$967,000 - would you like us to go ahead?"
Believe it or not, she asked the question as if there was a chance I might say, "sure, just put it on my bill." Since they didn't seem to have the option to pay in four easy installments of $250,000 each, I declined.
In retrospect, I should have realized that any answer that required an engineering study was probably an answer I didn't really want. I wonder, though: would my purchase of just under $1M worth of equipment have meant that all of my neighbors would then be able to get the service for $49.95?
I subsequently ordered high-speed data service from the local cable TV monopoly--and am pretty pleased with the results. They're shockingly incompetent as a cable TV provider, but their cable modem service has worked surprisingly well.
Its not a Radio signal (Score:3)
Off-topic comment. (Score:2)
Fiber equipment info/ Pairgain info/ etc. (Score:5)
PairGain is a company that makes several products, all of which seek to expand existing copper facilities. Their most commonly used piece is called a Digital AML, which allows you to take one copper line and provide another line. This is predominantly used in areas that are not "feed rich", and in urban areas are the default used when a customer orders a second line.
The ADSL problem w/ fiber is simple- DSL technology (as has been previously posted) is meant to utilize the unused bandwith that copper wires can carry, in a higher frequency than the human ear can hear.
Finally, the fiber/ copper problem you were fed over the phone. Chances are, when you are quoted such a thing, Verizon went and installed a fiber remote hut, which is used to extend feed out from the CO. Fiber is brought out of the CO (usually in two different paths, for loop redundancy) to a hut or ManHole, and then copper is run from that hut for feed. When this is done, it is to provide more feed pairs in a certain route (which is how Verizon tracks fill rates and such, by distribution areas and routes that they determine). The most common technology used w/ the fiber huts is LiteSpan, and LiteSpan is not a DSLAM. Newer LiteSpan shelves can provide DSL facilities, but it would be impossible to find out the specifics of a LiteSpan unit unless you knew your local Outside Plant Engineer.
Before you despair, there is one caveat to the fiber hut- there's copper run from the CO to the hut as well. We are REQUIRED to run copper, b/c there are special circuits that we can't provide over fiber facilities- the best example is the alarm circuits in the hut, which must be on fiber.
OK, last thing- customer service, and how to get what you want. When you call, you receive an associate. Ask to speak w/ their supervisor, they have to put you through. From there, be prepared to complain loudly, insist that you know there are copper facilities there- you may cite lotto circuits and security circuits. Tell them you are prepared to call the PSC (Public Service Commission) or call the Verizon President's Hotline (which really escalates things). Ask them if they can give you your local Engineering office phone number.
They may tell you the copper feed portion at the hut already has circuits that preclude yours from receiving DSL- it is true that we can only provide one DSL circuit in every 25 pair of complement of copper wires, which is due to DSL's inherent limitations.
I think that answers all the questions- hopefully, seeing the post a day late, some will still check this and understand!
Re:You're out of luck, here's why. (Not Quite) (Score:3)
Also, just because you have a fiber local loop does not mean you can't get DSL. Read this [dslreports.com] for a decent explanation of the hybrid network issue. IF your neighborhood has new enough equipment (read: installed in the last 4 years or so), you may be able to convince them. In my experience with Verizon (on the left coast) the tier 1 support staff often has NO idea of what services are offered, where a certain service is and is not offered, or even whether or not they actually have a pulse. As a for instance: The company I work for (a medium sized ISP) receives a fax from Verizon stating that they would be offering enhanced DSL services in our area, so our sales department happily started selling these services. When installation dates started popping up, the Verizon techs denied for weeks that the service the customer had been sold was available. After many hours of sitting on hold, arguing with rude technicians (IMNSHO), and finally speaking with someone far enough up the food chain to know what was going on, our customers did indeed get their service. </rant>
Inefficiencies and new uses... (Score:2)
This is a funny case of worse is better. Running copper wires to homes and carrying voice communications over it is extremely inefficient. You use very little of the potential bandwidth in those copper wires. Once fibre became reasonable, phone companies found out that they could be much more efficient by multiplexing many phone conversations over a single line. Then enter DSL, and we found a way to use all the inefficiencies in the copper wires. Those who got the more efficient fibre get screwed.
Whether or not anything can even be done depends on how much of the bandwidth is available. Presumably, if the phone company dedicates enough bandwidth through the fibre to allow every phone line to be in use at once, part of it could be used for the unguaranteed internet packets. But even that requires some major changes to the multiplexors that are doing the conversion from copper to fibre.
I would think, that customers with all-fiber connections could just be wired directly into the Internet.
Sure, if you're already paying to have a strand of fibre in the home, all you have to do is pay for the equipment on each end, and the bandwidth. First of all, I doubt you have a strand of fibre in your house. Secondly, the equipment and bandwidth won't be cheap (well, the bandwidth charges won't be bad if you only want DSL level speed).
Hmm, I think it can work. (Score:2)
We are currently testing in South Africa.
Re:DSL is currently a copper thing. (Score:2)
In Saskatchewan, Sasktel runs Fibre to the "grey boxes", which are refered to as Walk-In Closets. Inside the WICs are DSLAMS. This allows them to have extremely nice speeds on their DSL, no matter how far from the CO you are.
Re:How DSL works (Score:2)
The phone companies don't just hook up a wire and a fiber at a terminal strip and have it work, even for voice. Optical transmitters are used to MODULATE whatever signal is to be transmitted on a laser that is then sent down the fiber. That signal could be voice, data, whatever.
Dielectric waveguides work just fine-- you could send "radio signals" over fiber if you could find a fiber big enough. Just like any other waveguide, the physical size of the guide determines the portion of the EM spectrum that it will propagate. Dielectric waveguides like optical fibers are discussed in most good Microwave engineering texts.
Fiber at Harbor Point, Boston (Score:4)
When we moved in, my roommates and I decided to set up a DSL line for out local LAN. Just like you said, the line test put us within the range for DSL - about 300 - 200 feet from the CO. Unfortunatly, Versizon (then Bell Atlantic) had aparantly added a coil of fiber inside the CO. That's right - according to Covad, there was fiber inside the CO, being used roughly as a patch cable. Thus, the whole Harbor Pont development (5000+ units, if I remember correctly) was unable to get DSL from anyone. Because of a patch-job that Bell Atlantic woudn't fix, Covad didn't have access to, and Flashcom... well, Flashcom didn't seem to be able to find it's butt with both hands, so they responded by opening three new accounts.
However, our tale of woe had a happy ending. Before Bell Atlandic owned up to the fiber thing, Covad came and installed a modem, and the thing couldn't find a link. So they came and installed it again, this time drilling more holes in our walls and breaking the phone patch box so that we didn't have a landline for a week. When the whole thing finally turned out to be impossible, we called Covad to give them their modem back. Covad told us that the modem belonged to Flashcom (which didn't sound right, since Covad was in charge of the actual installation). Flashcom told us that it belonged to ConcentricDSL. Concentric had no idea who the hell we were, so we started over with Covad, and repeated the cycle. After getting the runnaround again, we put it up on eBay, got $200 for it, and treated outselves to a nice dinner.
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Re:Fiber at Harbor Point, Boston (Score:2)
sorry (Score:5)
Re:I think you're screwed (Score:5)
Pairgains (Score:2)
What a pairgain (and there are other equivalents) does is allow the phone company to put two or more lines on a single pair of copper. A lot of these (the non-digitial ones) actually use the high-frequency part of the wire (where DSL lives) for the second line. Thus, it would be impossible to provide DSL across these.
Add to the fact that there really isn't a copper pair between point a and b for both customers. Even if you could put dsl and pairgain on a pair, only one of the customers would likely be able to use it, unless you do something funky like line sharing, etc.
They're feeding you bullshit (Score:2)
Logically speaking, you CAN'T deny DSL service with the excuse of "half the line is fiber", because that would make no sense.
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Not True (Score:2)
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Re:They're feeding you bullshit (Score:2)
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Re:My understanding of how this works... (Score:3)
This broad spectral band transmission technology you speak of is what in electrical engineering they call "broadband". As opposed to putting a purely digital voltage level on your line, called "baseband" - that's what your network card uses hence "10base*" or "100base*". The problem with baseband is that attenuation scrubs the signal in pretty short order - however the circuitry for baseband is pretty simple. Not so with broadband, open up your DSL modem, I gaurantee you'll see at least one high performance DSP and a whole lot of RF shielding. It's a lot of work to take the wacky signal on your DSL line and convert it to 1's and 0's.
Now to create the broad spectrum of signal on a copper wire is fairly easy. We take fancy electronics and jiggle electrons on the line and the resulting wave travels down the wire - slowly degrading as it encounters impurities in the copper, bridge taps, and so on.
Now the analog of all this to fiber doesn't quite work. There is no reason you couldn't transmit a broad spectral signal over fiber, it is just difficult to generate the different frequencies of light quickly. What we can do is toggle on and off a particular frequency of light really fast. So what is done with fiber is we put an led at one end and it gets turned on and off millions of times a second and we put a detector at the other end. This is sort of baseband style transmission over fiber. Of course the fiber itself can handle transmission of more than just the one frequency given off by the single LED, but there are cost effectiveness issues in there affecting how complicated to make your emitter/detector pairs.
As for the voice and compression issues you mentioned... It really isn't that complicated. The cutoff for your telephone is about 4KHz. The telephone company generally samples everything down to 56kbps of digital data - that's what their switching equipment handles. Ever notice that old ISDN was 56kbps per channel and old T1 was 24 channels of 56kbps? Well, there is a reason for all that. It's all 64kbps now, but I digress. The phone company does a straight digital sampling down to 56kbps on your voice and then passes you through a bandpass filter to remove the artifacts when it puts your voice back together. This is why if you listen to one of those call in radio shows the person on the phone always sounds bad. Audio fidelity on telephones isn't good and there really isn't much difference in talking with someone across the street or across the country anymore. They don't need a supercomputer to compress your voice.
Re:He's Not Screwed For Long! (Score:2)
So you're a karma whore, eh? For the right price, I'll be a karma pimp...
Re:Its not a Radio signal (Score:2)
So you're a karma whore, eh? For the right price, I'll be a karma pimp...
Re:G.lite (Score:2)
So you're a karma whore, eh? For the right price, I'll be a karma pimp...
How DSL works (Score:5)
The converter between copper and fiber focuses on the relatively narrow spectrum that voice communications are in and discards DSL as mere noise, thus not sending it over the fiber. The two solutions are to move the CO (not gonna happen), or by a converter with a greater range (also not going to happen - at least anytime soon). Look for a flavor of DSL known as G.lite - I think it fits into the range of the converters and will run over fiber.
So you're a karma whore, eh? For the right price, I'll be a karma pimp...
It's called a MiniRAM, bellsouth uses them.... (Score:2)
The fiber line goes to the miniram, and copper goes from the miniram to your house. It's basically a small DSLAM wired directly to the ATM network.
Rather simplified, but tell them about minirams and see what they say.
Re:Helpful Information (Score:2)
www.verizoneatspoop.com [verizoneatspoop.com]
Re:Its not a Radio signal (Score:2)
It's basically the same thing. An analog signal going down a wire is the same "stuff" a radio signal is made of, the goal is just to keep it in the wire rather than let it leak out. (or encourage it to leak out, with a resonant antenna)
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Re:But Qwest is installing them? (Score:2)
Re:But Qwest is installing them? (Score:2)
No more last mile? (Score:2)
No more of this pussy 600kbit stuff, let's go for 100mbit!
Re:He's Not Screwed For Long! (Score:2)
Its been pretty-much assumed for the last year or so that any VDSL solution is going to be DMT based, except with the number of bins expanded to 1024 (and therefor going to 4 MHz).
The biggest problem with it is that it simply isn't economical (currently) to make a DSP that can FFT 1024 frequency bins in 250us (as per the DMT spec). Not to mention the fact that you will be cramming many more bits into each frequency bin, further wrecking the signal-to-noise margin.
In the end, say about 3-5 years, I expect to see VDSL in a lot of places, but it will require major infrastructure overhaul. Because the SNR margin will be reduced so dramatically, the range of VDSL will be *maybe* 10 kilofeet at the most. So either you'll have to live close to your CO, or the CO will have to move a DSLAM closer to you.
Tim
Re:I think you're screwed (Score:2)
not possible (Score:2)
There is a possibility that such a technology exists which takes the DSL signal and also puts it on fiber, but this probably isn't so. This would eat up your telco bandwidth for voice lines, which probably isn't meant to handle high speed singal sourced access, let alone an IP transport.
It looks like your only options are T1 (about $250 a month), cable, satellite, or 56k...
Re:not possible (Score:2)
No DSL in the curb cabinet (Score:2)
So what ? Can't they place the DSL termination (DSLAM) in the curb box ? Well, the answer is flatly no. It's a tiny box crammed with electronic and directly exposed to the sun, wind, heat, cold, etc. So 1) there's no room for a DSLAM in this kind of box, and 2) the equipment sitting there has be specially designed to resist the environmental conditions of this box: at least -40C to +85C (-40F to +185F) and 0% to 100% humidity. DSLAMs are already expensive in the CO, I let you imagine what would cost a hardened compacted DSLAM.
Re:I think you're screwed (Score:3)
Re:I think you're screwed (Score:2)
He's Not Screwed For Long! (Score:2)